The ball seemed to all of America to float in the air for eternity, a looping, tantalizing arc that started off the head of Jermaine Jones and landed at the feet of a man most U.S. soccer fans know as a poacher, through and through, a scoring machine and two-time MLS Golden Boot winner.

For Chris Wondolowski, the opportunity was there, on a platter, in stoppage time of the World Cup knockout stage opener against favored Belgium, a chance to steal a game the Americans in truth didn't deserve to have but, nonetheless, were positioned to anyway.

And Wondolowski, who's scored 89 goals for club and country since 2009, seemed to figure out international play with a rash of goals associated with an extra "W" sewn into his jersey, and drawn praise from Premier League stalwart John Terry for his "nightmare to cover" skill, simply didn't convert it. The ball hit the ground just before it hit his instep, his foot laid open as the carom took it safely away from the Belgian goal. The Red Devils scored twice in the overtime period, burying the U.S. at long last.

The one sense of relief, at least at first, seemed to be that Wondolowski was incorrectly ruled offside, but even that somehow-welcome sense of injustice is inapplicable; the flag simply was up for the goal kick. It would have counted.

It should have counted.

"I'm gutted to have let down everyone but especially my teammates," Wondolowski told the world on Twitter just hours later. "It's been an incredible ride but I know this will make me stronger."

To watch replays of it still churns the stomach, even for the hundreds of thousands of U.S. soccer fans who just earned that title this summer, the most fervent ever for the American program. A nation that so wholeheartedly chanted "I believe that we will win" suddenly had to take the dose of reality that we wouldn't; a scoring result from Wondolowski's point-blank effort would have changed that. For U.S. supporters, the miss was agony; for those watching from Chico, who love to claim "Wondo" as their own, it was worse, deeper, a sharp spasm that will stay fresh for a long time. Our guy had the chance to be the savior. He missed it. Longtime analyst and ESPN commentator Ian Darke lamented via tweet: "If he scores, a national hero. 19 times out of 20 he puts that in."

The loss was sour enough; the cynic would almost rue that Wondolowski was in that spot, the chance for American ecstasy just glancing off his right foot, with everyone watching.

The longer you've known his story, though, the more difficult it is to feel that way. Wondolowski toiled for a bit after his Chico State playing career in relative soccer obscurity. A deep draft pick in the MLS, he made 39 appearances in the league with just four goals before his transfer back to San Jose, and even during all this time, he wasn't the MLS's biggest name. Global stars like Landon Donovan and David Beckham were the big ones even as Wondolowski started piling up the goals. He scrapped to earn American national team recognition, even as it became clear in the 2010 World Cup that the U.S. forward position was among the weakest of the tournament. It took a coaching change and a few shining CONCACAF caps to finally earn his spot, and when this summer's Cup rosters were announced, it was the 31-year-old Danville kid who'd always been overlooked getting his first and very likely only shot on this stage over the national hero Donovan.

You'd better believe the American naysayers, those who love sports just for the chance to hate within the confines of them, argued that the latter would have slotted home. Maybe he would have. We'll never know (and frankly, to these eyes, it was a miracle the United States wasn't down 4-0 at that point anyway). But to look only at Wondolowski's failure when put in the position to succeed is to ignore a career spent climbing toward that very position in the first place.

You can feel angry about the miss, or sad, or even call Wondolowski's experience tragic. You can wish someone else had been there instead, so it wouldn't have happened to him. But anybody who's competed, at any level, will tell you the opportunity is all you can ask for.

Chris Wondolowski worked hard to get his. And for that alone, we all should be proud of him.

Contact Sports Writer Travis Souders at 896-7778 or email him at tsouders@chicoer.com. He can also be reached on Twitter: @travissouders.